ISSUE NUMBER ONE: 1937

Contents:

Editorial [see below] page 1

Announcements 2

The Origin and Progress of the Study Circle 2

Revised Suggestions 8

Saints and Animals 9

THE EDITORIAL

February, 1937

This little periodical may well be called First-fruits, for it represents the first expression of the hopes and labours of a few devoted people in a good cause.

It is not only the cause of animals, their welfare and protection, which is here advocated. It is the cause also of the good name of the Catholic Church, often attacked and seldom defended in this matter of the proper treatment of animals. And it is the cause of individual Catholics, animal lovers and anxious to help, who feel that, as Catholics, they should be and are able to make a contribution which others, with less clearly defined religious convictions, cannot achieve.

The chief enemy here, as everywhere, is ignorance, which leads to indifference. To penetrate this ignorance, it is necessary to demonstrate that concern for animal welfare is founded on Scripture; that it is an ancient tradition of the Catholic Church, in accordance with and not opposed to Catholic principle and doctrine, and gloriously exemplified in the lives of Catholic Saints. On the other hand, the extravagances which are credited to all animal lovers, en bloc, are neither Catholic nor universal, and are quite outside the concern of the Study Circle.

What is their concern is to explore, bring to light and express in popular language all that may be gleaned from Scripture, Tradition, and Practice in the Catholic Church which may be of value in encouraging animal lovers to work for animal welfare and the prevention of wanton cruelty, and incidentally for the development of the nobler qualities of human nature of which these things are the expression.

The Editor

[Dom Ambrose Agius OSB]